A Little Bit of Sunshine in My Life
by Raine Ito
Summary: Selphie's feeling very sad...and the whole Garden is catching it. Will Zell come to the rescue? A fluffy Zellphie shortfic. Enjoy!


Selphie was tired of war.   
  
All her life, she'd trained to fight, to join the military factions, the elite members of SeeD. All her life, she'd worked and toiled and fought, ravaged and killed, and was victorious. She'd saved the world, defeated a sorceress, won glory and fame.   
  
But when it was all said and done, she was just a normal girl, with normal fears and strengths, normal emotions, like hate, love, and sadness. And she didn't want to kill anything. She didn't want to burn or blow up anything. She just wanted to sit and let the sunshine drift in through her window on to her tired, tearstained face.  
  
And so that was how Zell found her, that bright and chilly October morning, as he passed the dormitories on his way to the cafeteria. She was sitting on her bed in her room, gazing out the window, her legs hugged up to her chest, and her head back against the windowsill. She just sat there for a long time, not moving, then suddenly looked down at her nunchaku, lying across her nightstand, and kicked it away, turning her face from view.  
  
Zell just sat and stared. He'd never seen her like this before. She'd always been bright, happy Selphie, eager Selphie, smiling, encouraging, loveable Selphie, who waltzed along in the garden courtyard, picking flowers and chatting with all the boys, who loved her, as all did, for her warmth, and her smile, and her eyes. Then Zell shook himself. Why was he thinking this way?  
  
He almost went in, to ask her what was wrong, but as he went to do so, she got up, and went across the room. Zell felt guilty. I didn't mean to spy, he thought. I wonder what's going on, anyway? Was it their last mission? It had been to Winhill, rescuing a little girl from a pack of bandits. She'd seemed strangely withdrawn then, he remembered. Silent, pensive. Not at all like the girl he knew.   
  
Zell swung to the side, pretending to be about some other business as Selphie walked out of her room, and turned down the long hall. She stopped for a moment, and looked at him, then shook her head and went away, leaving him worried and doubtful. Something's wrong, so horribly wrong, he thought, if Selphie's not smiling. It makes the whole world seem somehow grayer, darker.  
  
There was nothing else for it. Zell left the Garden's walls after picking up a hotdog, to search for Selphie. But no matter how hard he looked, she seemed to have hidden herself far from him. He wandered the Garden grounds, looking at the leaves as the fell from the trees, brown and withered in the absence of the sunshine. Nothing seemed to be growing now, which was odd, for October. Usually, you could still find a few plants here and there, that hadn't wilted, faded, or fallen.  
  
Maybe for lack of else to do, or because something inside him told him he needed to, Zell spent the rest of the morning searching for anything living and growing. Yet, everywhere he looked, it seemed to be barren. The other students weren't talking or laughing as much, and he couldn't help thinking it was Selphie's doing, intentional or not. It just wasn't the same.  
  
But when he'd almost given up hope of finding anything, Zell suddenly saw, in the very corner of the flowerbeds, a tiny yellow daisy, that had just burst in to bloom recently. It brought a little bit of light to that section of the Garden, just enough that when Zell went closer to it, he felt better.   
  
So when he found Selphie, walking along alone by the nurse's office, a tissue clutched to her nose, he took her arm, and led her out of the Garden, and into the courtyards, past the benches, through the crowds, to the little flower, just sitting, all by itself, radiating love and light throughout the cold. And when Selphie saw it, she smiled, for the first time all week, and looked up at Zell.  
  
"Thank you," she said, hugging him quickly. "I just needed a bit of sunshine in my life, just then." 


End file.
